I collected my consignment store sales yesterday.
I made a total of $18.50 and promptly spent $12.00 of it on a new top to travel to Paris with me.
“My mother is dying and my daughter is getting divorced so I am here shopping,” said the woman in line ahead of me.
“I know that feeling,” I said, not realizing I said it out loud until she turned and looked at me.
“How old were you?” she asked.
“Thirty-five.”
“Oh, good, you’re young,” she sighed with relief as if my age would save her daughter’s fate.
As I left the store with my new designer top snagged for a hefty twelve dollars — or earned with my consignment sales (however you want to look at it) — I realized that woman was shoplifting.
As in, shop LIFTING.
Lifting her spirits through the adventure of shopping. The exhilaration of designing a new life. One where her mother was alive, well and spirited and her daughter was enjoying the marriage of her dreams.
Today, I watched Oprah’s interview with Ram Das on Super Soul Sunday (while folding clothes and packing my suitcase for Paris!). I was touched by his story, which I have to admit, was new to me.
I have heard of Ram Das, as in people singing his name and praises, but I never knew the story of the man or his impact.
Today, I learned his journey of being fired from Harvard, traveling to India, sharing his mission to spread love and having a stroke later in life that almost silenced him.
As I watched him on screen in his wheelchair profess the power of love, it occurred to me that we all LIFT ourselves in different ways.
Some travel to India, some dive into food and drink, and others end up at the consignment shop.
Still others show us the greater meaning of life by focusing on love.
See… there it is again, the greatest lift of all…
LOVE.
I do love my new top I brought home.
But, in a bigger, deeper, stronger way, I love the brief conversation I was present for in line at that consignment shop. Because in a small way, I felt like we made a connection.
And what’s more loving than that?
